# OLX: Director of Product, Core Classified Experience (EU)

> Called the classifieds decline early and moved the platform to transactions.

- **Period:** 2019 to 2022
- **Company:** OLX Group, a Prosus company (Global network of leading online marketplaces)
- **Location:** Germany
- **Scope:** 350M+ potential reach and 200 to 220M stable monthly active users. Grew the product organization from 6 to 16 and co-led, with the Director of Engineering, a department of 13 cross-functional teams (130+ people).
- **Themes:** Classifieds & marketplaces, Business model shift, Trust & safety, Org scaling

## Outcomes

- 200M+: stable monthly active users
- 25%+: ARPU CAGR against Facebook Marketplace and Vinted
- 5-10%: success-based take rate introduced

Led the platform transformation across a 7-market European network spanning Goods, Jobs, Services, Rental and Motors.

## The situation

Low-value peer-to-peer listings were migrating to social platforms, and the listing-fee model was structurally on its way out. Facebook Marketplace and Vinted were taking share with very different economics.

## What I did

- **Read the market early** and repositioned the core experience around completed transactions, moving to a success-based take rate of 5 to 10 percent.
- **Scaled trust and safety infrastructure** so high-value transactions (shipping, payments) could happen safely on the platform, which changed the unit economics and ARPU of the business.
- **Unified the product** across Goods, Jobs, Services, Rental and Motors so each line could thrive independently on shared capabilities.
- **Scaled the organization** from 6 to 16 product people (13 PMs and 3 Heads of Product), and introduced OKRs and an experimentation culture across 13 cross-functional teams.

## What changed

ARPU grew at a 25%+ CAGR while holding position against well-funded challengers.

## What I took from it

Business model shifts are timing problems. The evidence is usually visible years before it is undeniable; the job is to move while the old model still funds the new one.

Source: https://zoltan.peaktopeak.hu/work/olx